by FYIVT.com

Three-day weekend, fall color on the hills, and every town green in the state has a tent on it. Craft fairs, foliage trains, a maple sugarhouse boiling in October, and a 5K that pays out in cider donuts. Gas up.

🏁Weekend Spotlight: 2026 Stowe Foliage Arts Festival

Juried artists and makers, specialty food producers, live music and festival fare, all on the Stowe Events Field at 120 Weeks Hill Road while the mountain does its thing behind the tents. Same hours all three days, so pick the one with the best forecast.

Friday, October 9: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Opening day, and your best shot at first pick before the long-weekend crowd shows up. Adults $12; kids 14 and under free.

Saturday, October 10: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The big day. Same $12 for adults, kids 14 and under free. Park, eat, browse, repeat.

Sunday, October 11: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Last call for the thing you walked past Friday and have been thinking about ever since. $12 adults, kids 14 and under free.

Go Stowe

Friday, October 9

David Sedaris takes the stage at 7 p.m. at Spruce Peak Arts in Stowe. He’s in for two nights, Thursday and Friday, and Friday’s the one that fits the weekend. Tickets run $62.78 to $90.60. Bring a friend who doesn’t laugh easily and watch them lose. Spruce Peak Arts

What the Constitution Means to Me plays Lost Nation Theater at 39 Main St. in Montpelier, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday. Sunday closes the run. Tickets are $15 to $45. Capital city, constitutional theater, and the timing practically writes itself. Montpelier Alive

Songs to Fill the Air feat. Ragged Company and Pappy runs 6 to 8 p.m. at Lawson’s Finest Taproom in Waitsfield. Beer within arm’s reach and a soundtrack for the ride home through the valley. Lawson’s Finest

Great Holland Halloween runs 5 to 7 p.m. at the Holland Historical Society and Museum, 693 Gore Rd. in Holland. Kids make a Halloween-themed pillow, paint a ceramic pumpkin, get some candy and head home with a treat bag. About as far up the map as a Halloween party gets. Barton Chronicle

Saturday, October 10

5K Cider Donut Dash starts the day early, 8 to 10 a.m. at Billings Farm & Museum in Woodstock. Walk or run mowed paths through the pastures with live music along the route and cider donuts at the finish. It’s $30 to run, $10 to spectate day-of, and there are prizes for the top finishers and the best dressed. Woodstock Vermont

55th Annual Newfane Heritage Festival fills the Newfane Village Town Common 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Over 60 juried artists and craftspeople, a food tent with lobster rolls, chowder, pumpkin cake and apple pie, and a 150-plus-item raffle in Union Hall drawing Sunday at 3. Fifty-five years in, they know what they’re doing. Vermont.com

HarvestFest’s Brewfest pours at Stratton Mountain Resort’s base area starting at 11:30 a.m., last pour 5:30. Vermont ales, lagers, porters, sours and ciders, live music on an outdoor stage with the foliage as backdrop, and a chili cook-off running alongside. Tickets are $25 for 21+, $25 for ages 11–20, $15 for 4–10, free for 3 and under, and they’re advance-only. Rain or shine; leave the dog home. Vermont.com

65th Annual Art in the Park Fall Foliage Festival sets up in Rutland’s Main Street Park at the junction of Routes 4 and 7, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Fine artists, craftspeople, specialty foods, kids’ activities and live music, plus a 65th-birthday cake cutting at noon Saturday. Sixty-five years and still going. Chaffee Art Center

Fall for St. Johnsbury runs Saturday and Sunday with one-hour round-trip foliage train rides along the Passumpsic and Connecticut rivers, leaving the St. Johnsbury Welcome Center at 51 Depot Square at 9 and 10:30 a.m., noon, 1:30 and 3 p.m. both days. Saturday adds a 5 p.m. sunset ride with seasonal cocktails, the Kingdom Challenge 5K at 9 a.m. from the Father Lively Center, and a by-donation pancake breakfast at the St. Johnsbury House, 8 to 10:30. A fall market runs 9 to 3 in Depot Square Park both days, with free tractor rides 10 to 2. Train tickets go through Catamount Arts. Discover St. Johnsbury

Oktoberfest 5K kicks off at 11 a.m. from Brookfield Old Town Hall, 93 Stone Rd., with the party running till 4. Afterward: food from Pond Village Pub/Green Trails Inn, music, drinks, and contests in beer-stein holding, pretzel eating and apple bobbing, plus a costume competition. Admission is free. Brookfield doesn’t get enough credit for knowing how to throw one. Brookfield Old Town Hall

Maple Open House Weekend at Gagne Maple/Maple City Candy, 45 Sugarhouse Ln. in Swanton, runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. They’re boiling sap into syrup in October, which is a sentence you don’t get to write often. Hay wagon rides through the sugarbush, maple creemees, maple donuts, and specialty popcorn samples. Maple City Candy

Vermont Reindeer Farm Fall Festival runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 3108 Chilafoux Rd. in Orleans. Reindeer, mini donkeys and highland calves, $10 to get in. Santa’s crew is in pre-season training; go scout the roster. Barton Chronicle

Cross-Border Poetry runs 1 to 5 p.m. at the Haskell Opera House, which lists addresses on both sides of the line: Derby Line, VT, and Stanstead, QC. Eighteen poets from Vermont and Canada, including Liz Howard, Chard de Niord, Katharine Whitcomb and Kathleen Winter, presented by the Centre des Arts de Stanstead. Free entry. Discover Newport

Vermont Forest Cemetery 3rd Anniversary Celebration runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 750 Beaver Meadow Rd. in Roxbury, the state’s only cemetery dedicated entirely to natural burial. An animal-tracking workshop at 10, poetry in the forest labyrinth with Vermont Book Award winner Carlene Kucharczyk at 11, guitarist Zach Nugent from noon to 1:30, and a founders tour from 2 to 4. RSVP through their site. Strange and lovely in about equal measure. Vermont Forest Cemetery

Flannel & Fall Fest runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Vermont Teddy Bear Company in Shelburne. Face painting, outdoor vendors, Vermont-made products, games for the kids and local music. Wear the plaid; it’s in the name. Vermont.com

Sunday, October 11

Middlebury Car Show & Fall Festival takes over Triangle Park and Main Street in Middlebury, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Seventy-five classic cars and trucks, food trucks, 30-plus vendors, music and kids’ activities, and it’s free for spectators. Vehicle registration’s already full, so just come look. Addison County Chamber

23rd Annual Heirloom Apple Day is Scott Farm Orchard’s biggest day of the year, at 707 Kipling Road in Dummerston. Tastings all day, the heirloom apple display, talks from apple expert John Bunker and historian Todd Little-Siebold, kids’ face and pumpkin painting, food trucks and live music. Admission is free, rain or shine. Taste an apple you’ve never heard of. Scott Farm Orchard

Fall Fundraiser Market runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1346 Vermont Route 58 West in Irasburg, with baked goods, sourdough, festive drinks, food and crafters. Exactly the kind of roadside stop the long way home was invented for. Barton Chronicle

Pressed Flowers with Artist Ellie Roden runs noon to 3 p.m. at Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home, in Manchester. Learn to press flowers and foliage, then make your own artwork, cards and bookmarks to take home. No experience needed, materials provided; sliding-scale pricing at $10, $25 or $100 pay-it-forward. Registration through Hildene. Manchester Vermont

Twelve counties, a three-day weekend, and the trees aren’t waiting for you. Neither should you.